Thomas Szasz Quotes

Many Americans abhor paternalism. They think that people should be able to go their own way, even if they end up in a ditch. When they run risks, even foolish ones, it isn't anybody's business that they do.

No god save self, that is the way to live.

When the individual is relieved of the obligation of self-respect, he acquires the habits of helplessness; he is inclined to retreat to the security of the prenatal state. The more he is taken care of the more he wants care.

[T]he notion that a belief in self-reliance cannot coexist with a spirit of generosity is crap. In fact, one is far less likely to find a spirit of generosity among the advocates of governmentally-required "compassion".

If you are an adult, you are responsible for your life and well-being. No one owes you the fulfillment of your needs or wants; no one is here on earth to serve you. If you respect the principle of self-ownership, you understand that no one else owns you and that you do not own anyone else. Only on this understanding can there be peace on earth and good will among human beings.

The great lesson that nature seems to teach us at all ages is self-dependence, self-protection, self-support. In the hours of our keenest sufferings all are thrown wholly on themselves for consolation.

And so the reliance on Property, including the reliance on governments which protect it, is the want of self-reliance.

The American culture ideal of the "self-made-man," of everyone "standing on his own feet" seemed as tragic a picture as the initiative-destroying dependence on a benevolent despot. He felt and perceived clearly that we all need continuous help from each other, and that this type of interdependence is the greatest challenge to maturity of individual and group functioning.

When gods die, self-respect buds', murmured Orland Fank. 'Gods and their examples are not needed by those who respect themselves and, consequently, respect others. Gods are for children, for little, fearful people, for those who would have no responsibility to themselves or their fellows.

As I get older ... I become more convinced that good government is not a substitute for self-government.

In fact, the left can't survive with independently self-sufficient, self-reliant people. They aren't needed if that ever happens, or within groups of people like that. So they have to assume that people are mind-numbed robots.

America's heart and soul is more embedded in our love of liberty, self-reliance, and tolerance than by our foreign policy, driven by powerful special interests with little regard for the Constitution.

We are all mortals, and each is for himself.

It may be that the human race is not ready for freedom. The air of liberty may be too rarefied for us to breathe... The paradox seems to be, as Socrates demonstrated long ago, that the truly free individual is free only to the extent of his own self-mastery. While those who will not govern themselves are condemned to find masters to govern over them.

It was easy to blame other people for treating me in ways I didn't like, but now I was seeing that I was the one at fault. The only way you can be mistreated is by allowing yourself to be mistreated, and that was something I did over and over again. Somehow, I needed to find that glimmer of self-respect, buried deep inside, that would allow me to say: I am never going to let that happen to me again. I needed to learn how to stand up for myself in a different way, but I didn't know how.

The obligation to amuse and instruct myself was entirely my own, and people who didn't know that were childish people, to be avoided if possible. Certainly not to be trusted.

Independence is the only gauge of human virtue and value. What a man is and makes of himself; not what he has or hasn’t done for others. There is no substitute for personal dignity.

You don't have to be 'adults'... but be someone who can take responsibility for their own words and actions. Believe it or not, that's actually harder.

You should stop and listen to yourselves sometimes. 'We're practically adults, let us run wild.' 'We're only kids, leave us alone.'...You can't have it both ways.

Doing for people what they can and ought to do for themselves is a dangerous experiment. In the last analysis, the welfare of the workers depends upon their own initiative. Whatever is done under the guise of philanthropy or social morality which in any way lessens initiative is the greatest crime that can be committed against the toilers. Let social busybodies and professional "public morals experts" in their fads reflect upon the perils they rashly invite under this pretense of social welfare.

Freedom is messy. In free societies, people will fall through the cracks - drink too much, eat too much, buy unaffordable homes, fail to make prudent provision for health care, and much else. But the price of being relieved of all those tiresome choices by a benign paternal government is far too high. Big Government is the small option: it's the guarantee of smaller freedom, smaller homes, smaller cars, smaller opportunities, smaller lives.

Freedom is not an abstaction, nor is a little of it enough. A little more is not enough either. Having less, being less, empoverished in freedom and rights, women then invariably have less self-respect: less self-respect than any human being needs to live a brave and honest life.

I always thought it was due to liberals are about the collective whereas conservatives are more about individual liberty and responsibility. So it kind of makes sense that liberals are more prone to rally around each other no matter what. It's kind of a hive mind-set.

Self-responsibility is the core quality of the fully mature, fully functioning, self-actualizing individual.

I do not want any patronage, as I do not give any. I am a lover of my own liberty, and so I would do nothing to restrict yours. I simply want to please my own conscience which is God.